Sometimes in software design it's great to develop a visual of the system in question to help in the thinking process.

Josh Barratt is a software architect at Twilio, and blogs about system design at [Serialized.Net]((https://serialized.net/). His recent post Effective Technical Diagrams has some great guidelines for improving the technical diagrams that we use to communicate.

Images convey ideas and structure far more effectively than text. Especially for software systems, they can even help with reasoning about things like capacity, connectivity, reliability, security and performance.

Like any craft, methods of designing visuals that communicate effectively and efficiently can be studied and improved. We have probably all seen diagrams which led to an immediate “aha!” – and others, that after minutes of squinting, led to only more confusion.

I too, adore OmniGraffle, and have made my share of good and bad technical diagrams in my pursuit of a better design. Here's one I made in the last year, the usefulness of which could be argued both ways:

(SORRY, LOST IMAGE)

I can't repent for being white, but I can repent for being white #race #racism

None#bookmark Effective Technical Diagrams https://serialized.net/2020/02/effective_technical_diagrams/

Bloomberg might or might not beat Trump, but he will definitely further establish the #oligarchy as the political power in the US, and money as the deciding factor #democracy

https://twitter.com/blakezeff/status/1227976156936171520

(SORRY, LOST IMAGE)

A little something on the lighter side

No Country for #oldwhitemen

@SenAmyKlobuchar @SenWarren

None#bookmark Global Social Theory https://globalsocialtheory.org

Dorian Taylor https://doriantaylor.com #hypermedia #thinking

Looks like I need a #bookmark feature in #Goldfrog now: "Agile as Trauma" https://doriantaylor.com/agile-as-trauma

As someone who's leery of using #SaaS products for everything, I like seeing @posthoghq offering a self-hosted product in the #metrics space https://posthog.com

As someone who's leery of using #SaaS products for everything, I like seeing @posthoghq offering a self-hosted product in the #metrics space https://posthoghq.com

in #deathmarch mode at work @ 10pm #latenightcapitalism 😭

I recently found the following in a bit of #python sample code:

python random_data = random.sample(string.hexdigits, 8)

Wait, hexdigits? I'd use string.ascii_letters and string.ascii_lowercase before, but this was the first time I'd seen hexdigits, which is exactly what you'd think:

The string '0123456789abcdefABCDEF'.

That's useful.

(SORRY, LOST IMAGE)

(Courtesy of Craig Maloney on toot.cafe)

What's a good, tiny, javascript toolkit for adding minimal #progressiveenhancement?

Black Panther Party #survival_programs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_PartyNone#Survival_programs

(SORRY, LOST IMAGE)

Dammit

21st Century Autocracy https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/02/11/21st-century-autocracy #uspol #autocracy #trump

It seems that there is no good thing that our white capitalist society cannot turn to evil - take for example the [independent contractor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misclassification_of_employees_as_independent_contractors #work #capitalism

https://twitter.com/thotscholar/status/1227266798413897728?s=20

The hard part of blogging is not writing, it is sharing your post:

https://andregarzia.com/2020/02/the-hard-part-of-blogging-is-not-writing-it-is-sharing-your-post.html #blogging #socialmedia